Dual Citizenship Crisis - s 44(i)

[stui magpie]

This is getting ridiculous:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-1 ... ce/8819502

I'll eat my shoe if there aren't any Labor MPs in strife.

I wouldn't worry about the condiments, I'll bet labor is frantically running round in the background, checking and renouncing but trying to keep it all quiet so they can claim the high moral ground. It will bite them sooner or later.

Interesting how Sect 44 doesn't apply to state governments, only the feds.

[Pies4shaw]

Why is it "interesting"? It's the Commonwealth Constitution. So, it deals with the establishment and filling of positions in the Commonwealth Parliament. To the extent that the States have "constitutions", they are actually only Acts of the State Parliaments (eg, in Victoria, see the Constitution Act 1975), so none of their content is entrenched in any real legal sense. Similarly, the creation of "local government" is, in turn, achieved by an Act of the State Parliaments, so "local government" is about as necessary, constitutionally, as a railway corporation - ie, not at all.

[stui magpie]

^

Cheers counsel, but the average punter likely didn't study constitutional law so wouldn't know that

[Pies4shaw]

^

Cheers counsel, but the average punter likely didn't study constitutional law so wouldn't know that

In fact, hilariously, I see that the Victorian Parliament has entrenched a few provisions by amending legislation passed in 2003 - so they've deliberately fettered themselves (or, if you're feeling miserable about it, us).

[stui magpie]

I was under the impression that Victoria had basically no limits. You could be a syrian national with temporary residency in Australia and get voted in.

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

Oh, oops! A not-so-independent Independent?

[ronrat]

The British should know better. Now there bloody stupid citizenship laws are biting former colonies on the arse. There own influx of Indian, Pakistani, West Indian , Bangladesh people should have been the wake up call.

When Ronald Biggs was recaptured in Brazil he was allowed to stay because his son Michael was a Brazillian. The British were furious. So why disn't they clean up their own archaic citizenship laws. Then came the Brixton riots etc. OK it was a loophole to getZola Budd and a few cricketers.

And what the hell do they discuss at CHOGM. Durely at the next one they need to thrash this out.

[David]

I wouldn't blame the British for this. Ordinarily a dual citizenship is a privilege, not a problem; if they want to hand them out to the children of British citizens, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Many countries do this, perhaps even us as far as I know. Anyway, we're the ones whose stupid law on the matter has thrown our parliament into chaos.

[stui magpie]

I wouldn't blame the British for this. Ordinarily a dual citizenship is a privilege, not a problem; if they want to hand them out to the children of British citizens, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Many countries do this, perhaps even us as far as I know. Anyway, we're the ones whose stupid law on the matter has thrown our parliament into chaos.

Our 'stupid" law is common amongst countries that allow duel citizenship. A number of countries make you renounce any foreign citizenship just to be able to be a citizen, let alone a member of parliament.

[David]

Whether or not that's true, I still think it's stupid and unnecessary.

Let's consider the law actually acting as it's supposed to (i.e. not landing half our elected parliamentarians in the High Court on a technicality). Say, in a hypothetical Australia where Section 44(i) doesn't exist, Igor Igorevich is a Russian national who has attained Australian citizenship and decided to run for preselection. Unbeknownst to anyone, Igor is a Russian spy working for Vladimir Putin, just waiting to get into Parliament House so he can get a ministry, negotiate favourable trade deals with Russia and, while he's at it, leak classified information about the contents of Tony Abbott's underwear draw. In the imminent Australo-Russian war, he's planning to bat for both teams. Our nation's sovereignty is at stake!

Now replay the same scenario in which Igor is forced to tactically renounce his Russian citizenship before running for election. What changes? Which aspects of his dastardly plan can he no longer achieve? If he gets sprung, there's always the chance of claiming political asylum in Russia. There's literally nothing about section 44(i) that protects us from such a scenario. It's pure symbolism.

I get the symbolism part of it. I just don't get the point of hanging onto a symbolic law when its only use in practice seems to be a stumbling point for a near-random assortment of elected politicians. To say it's caused more harm than good would be an understatement.

[ronrat]

A big part of the dual citizenship allowance is due to Israel.Other nations, mainly Muslim, do not allow entry to Israeli citizens. Malaysia is one such country.

Another issue will be surrogacy, adoption and donor sperm etc. Forgetting any possible ethical concerns anyone has, and that is bad enough, the legal ones will be an issue.

Lets hope we see some commonsense from the High Court. Because we aren't from anywhere else.

[Jezza]

Derryn Hinch has now been embroiled in this crisis.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-30/d ... ty/8857752

[David]

Lol. Will we have any politicians left by the end of this?

[Tannin]

Lets hope we see some commonsense from the High Court. Because we aren't from anywhere else.

Just so. It is virtually certain that the High Court will rule - as it is required to do - in accordance with the law. None of the politicians who hold foreign citizenship are entitled to sit in parliament. The constitution is perfectly clear on this. Joyce, Canavan, Nash, Roberts, and possibly Xenophon will all be rubbed out. (Xenophon is not a full British Citizen, his case is borderline.)

Ludlum and Waters have already done the right thing and resigned. Hinch should be OK, he's not by any stretch of the imagination a US citizen.

So that gives us:

• Gawn: Joyce, Canavan, Nash (all Nationals) and Roberts (One Nation).
• Resigned: Ludlum and Waters (both Green).
• 50/50: Xenophon (Xenophon Party).
• OK: Hinch (Hinch Party).

Joyce will have to be replaced at a by-election. His seat is far from safe.

All the others are senators and will be replaced by members of their own parties via a recount. (It is possible that a recount could elect a new senator from another party, but unlikely.)

No sane person could regret the loss of any of the threatened senators. Nash is a corrupt crony of the big food lobby; Canavan is a pretty typical hard-right conservative with no known redeeming values; Roberts is a certifiable wild-eyed loonie even by One Nation standards. Xenophon is fairly decent by Liberal Party standards (i.e., deceitful and right-wing); his replacement (if needed) is unlikely to be any worse and quite possibly better.

Ludlam, of course, has been a colossal loss: many people - young ones in particular - regarded him as quite the best Senator in the chamber. His replacement is an unknown quantity but most unlikely to be as good as Ludlam was. Waters was another good'un but won't be missed as much because her replacement is, if anything, even better.

That leaves Joyce. No-one knows who will win the by-election for his seat. On the whole, even in the Nationals retain it, it is difficult to imagine that his replacement won't be a better, more decent person.

So overall, we can offset the unfortunate loss of Ludlam against the undoubtedly positive loss of Roberts, Joyce, Canavan and Nash. On balance, you'd reckon it is overall a good thing.

(None of this is to deny that the Section 44 provision itself is daft. But it is in the Constitution and can't be changed without a referendum. In past years, there was broad cross-party agreement that it ought to be fixed, but the only political party which could be bothered actually doing anything about it was the Greens, and the big parties ignored the problem. Meanwhile, the law is the law and the High Court will enforce it. Suffer in your jocks Trumble.)